Thoughts and commentary about the janitorial and office cleaning business.

01/09/2013

Microfiber advantage

BSCAI's Services Magazine presents an excellent article on microfiber cleaning. Besides stressing a full system approach (the article is entitled "Microfiber Cleaning Systems"), emphasis is placed on the equipment available: sizes of cloths and frames, ergonomic handles, solution buckets, extra-absorbent materials, and so on. Good discussion, also, on what microfiber is, and how it cleans.

What I found most useful was the discussion on efficiency and environmental benefits: Less water, less chemical (often none at all), better indoor air quality - because of both less chemical usageand better dust, allergen and bacterial trapping and removal.

A few years ago, when we converted to microfiber damp mops, we found that we could "dumb down" our cleaning chemical by a step: where we had needed an aggressive, alkaline produce, we could use a neutral product; where we'd used a neutral product, we could use plain water. Microfiber both scrubs better than cotton, and absorbs better, so less chemical action is needed to clean gunk of the surface and to suspend and allow removal. Also, applies less water than a string mop, so we use less solution - water and chemical - and picks up more of what it put down, so he floor dries faster, with less water marking or streaking. Finally, changing the microfiber pad frequently (ideally, rather than re-dunking a pad at all) gives us a clean pad on the floor at all times. No cross-contamination at all.

The best system we've found is using a Diversey hydrogen peroxide cleaner/sanitizer with the microfiber, whether a damp mop or a cleaning cloth. The HP solution cleans quite well itself, and leaves virtually no residue (mostly oxygen and water), while giving effective sanitation: similar advantages, you'll have noticed, to those microfiber offers. Combining microfiber and hydrogen peroxide gives us a great system all the way around.

We've offered janitorial services in Phoenix since 1974; hold the BBB's A-plus rating; and have long been in the forefront of the industry in environmentally sensitive cleaning for health, safety and security. Our office cleaning program can generally improve Indoor Air Quality, in the size range of most allergens, by a factor of 50%, as reflected in our ongoing IAQ sampling. We also furnish Green Seal certified recycled restroom paper products and janitorial supplies.